nfpa - National Interagency Fire Center nfpa journal march/april 2003 building a home in a remote region with spectacular mountain

LIVING ON THE WILDSIDEThe worst U.S. wildfire season in yearsforces thousands of people to evacuatecommunities bordering wildlands

THE SOURCE FOR FIRE, ELECTRICAL,

nfpa

MARCH/APRIL 2003

W W W. N F PA J O U R N A L . O R G

JOURNAL

BUILDING, & LIFE SAFETY INFORMATION

NFPA JOURNAL MARCH/APRIL 2003 3WWW.NFPAJOURNAL.ORG

ANYONE WHO ENJOYS visiting the wildlandsof the United States can probably tell at least onetale about a benign hike in the woods that sud-denly brought them back in touch with therealities of nature. On more than one occasion, Ihave begun a hike in the White Mountains ofNew Hampshire on a warm spring day, only tofind myself fighting through a snowstorm anhour or two later.

Many of the thousands of Americans whochoose to live in areas abutting our nation’swildlands have also learned that, along with the

beautiful views andpeaceful surround-ings, comes the threatof wildfire engulfingtheir communities.This problem has got-ten a lot of attentionrecently, as droughtsin the West continue

to contribute to large, deadly wildfires.For years, NFPA has worked hard on the spe-

cial fire problems of those areas where wildlandsand development intersect. Since 1986, NFPAhas had a cooperative agreement with theUSDA Forest Service to develop and implementfire protection and prevention programs toreduce the nation’s wildfire losses. That relation-ship grew into the National Wildland/UrbanInterface Fire Protection Program, sponsored bythe Forest Service, the Department of the Inte-rior, the U.S. Fire Administration, the NationalAssociation of State Foresters, and NFPA.

Out of that relationship, a new public-privatepartnership, The National Firewise Communi-ties/USA Recognition Program, was launched.On behalf of NFPA, I signed an agreement lastNovember with the Forest Service and theNational Association of State Foresters to pro-mote and encourage this innovative program,which encourages communities to develop localsolutions to unwanted wildfire. Through the

Firewise Communities/USA Program, NFPAand its partners educate Americans about wild-fires and help communities develop programstailored to their needs.

The Firewise Communities/USA Program pro-jects vary from community to community. InBriargate, Florida, for example, the program wasused to develop strategies that will help the com-munity avoid a repeat of problems faced whenwildfires hit the area in 1998. A million-gallon(3,785,344-liter) water tank is now available forfighting fires, dirt from excavated lakes was used

to establish firebreaks, and pine forests have beenthinned. At River Bluff Ranch, near Spokane,Washington, roads have been improved, utilitiesare now underground, and covenants requirefire-resistant roofing, deep side-yard setbacks,and the maintenance of defensible space. And inSundance, Utah, spring and fall chipper/clean-outdays are becoming annual events.

This community leadership is central to theprogram’s success. By creating a framework inwhich fire and emergency management officialswork with concerned citizens, communities mostat risk from wildfire can put plans in place todeal with one. That means that the moreinvolved a community is, the more lives will besaved and property preserved.

We can’t change the laws of nature. Wildfireswill continue to shape and reshape our environ-ment. But that doesn’t mean we shouldwithdraw from wildland areas. It does mean thatwe must take special steps to live responsibly inthose areas, to protect both the environment andourselves. That’s what the Firewise Communi-ties/USA Program is all about, and that’s whywe at NFPA are proud to be involved with it.

James M. ShannonPresident, NFPA

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FIRSTWORD

Making wildfire preventiona life safety priority

Chris Heftel, a Washington state land

developer, has seen how destructive wild-

fire can be. So he wanted to minimize the

chances that such a disaster would

destroy his latest project, an upscale,

gated community of $500,000 single-

family homes on Lookout Mountain, about

7 miles (11 kilometers) from Spokane. >>

by BILL FLYNN ❚ illustration by JEFFREY FISHER

4 NFPA JOURNAL MARCH/APRIL 2003 WWW.NFPAJOURNAL.ORG

BUILDING A HOME IN A REMOTE REGION WITH SPECTACULAR MOUNTAIN

SCENERY OR WITH THE SPLENDID ISOLATION AND TRANQUILITY OF THE DESERT

IS A DREAM COME TRUE FOR MANY URBAN DWELLERS. BUT IT’S A DREAM THAT

CAN RAPIDLY BECOME A NIGHTMARE IF HOMEOWNERS AREN’T WILLING TO

CHANGE THEIR ATTITUDES TOWARD FIRE PROTECTION.

REMOTE

CONTROL

secure extra help for a fuels-reductionprogram. “We’ve managed to doabout 200 properties so far,” he notes.

Before new homes can be constructed,the prospective owners must obtain a firesafety permit from the fire department.At this point, Waldron uses NFPA 1144to inform the homeowners what theyneed to do to before construction.

“And we go back and check beforethe permit is issued,” he says.

“I think one of the biggest mistakeswe make in the business of fightingwildland fires is telling people that wewill be there to protect them, becausethat’s not always true,” Waldron says.“But in the past few years, I thinkwe’ve made a lot of progress in edu-cating people on what they need todo, not only to have a defensibleperimeter, but to use building materi-als that will allow a house to survive acrown fire.”

According to the Structure IgnitionAssessment Model (SIAM), a firemodel developed by Jack Cohen, a sci-entist at the U.S. Forest Service’s Fire

Sciences Laboratory in Missoula,Montana, a fire-resistive wooden struc-ture surrounded by a 100-foot(30-meter) area in which fuels havebeen thinned has a good chance ofsurviving a fast-moving crown fire.However, Cohen’s research seems toindicate that the principal cause ofhome losses during wildfires isn’t nec-essarily the buildup of fuels. Rather,it’s the degree to which a home is vul-nerable to ignition, a factor that’s oftenoverlooked when determining thecause of property loss during a wild-land fire.

“A home’s ignition zone is prettymuch determined by the characteris-tics of its construction and itsimmediate surroundings, regardless ofwhat wildfire might be movingthrough,” Cohen says.

Key elements in a structure’s ignitabil-ity are flammable roofs; burnablevegetation, such as ornamental trees andshrubs, close to the house; the lack oftempered-glass or double-paned win-dows; and the lack of 1/8-inch

(0.3-centimeter)mesh to keep frondsfrom entering open-ings in the structure.

The research alsoseems to suggestthat contemporarymethods of fightingwildfires by reduc-ing the fuel loadmay not be as effec-tive as believedbecause thinningfuels on publiclands does little toreduce the ignitabil-ity of a home onprivate land. It alsosuggests that thewildland/urbaninterface zone does-n’t fully take intoaccount the area ofprime fire risk andfuel hazards: thehouse and sur-rounding vegetation.

Cohen furtherstresses the importance of the conditionsthat exist when a wildfire is raging.

“When an extreme event, such asan intensely hot wildfire occurs, manyhundreds of structures may bedestroyed,” he says. “The involvementof urban fire apparatus at this point ispretty much ineffective.”

He points to the Los Alamos, NewMexico, fire in 2000 as an example.

“At one point the fire was threaten-ing 1,000 structures. How does fireapparatus cope with that?” he asks.“Under these extreme conditions, wedon’t have a choice over the fire’sbehavior. Where we do have a choiceis the home ignition, that 100-foot (30-meter) radius around the house.”

Florida uses Montana researchJim Harrell, the wildland mitigationcoordinator for the Florida Division ofForestry, says his division usesCohen’s research to encourage home-owners to create zones around theirproperty to reduce ignitability.

“We took a close look at what


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At first, he was inclined to suggestthat prospective buyers follow the con-cepts outlined in the FirewiseCommunities/USA program as part oftheir development contract. But whenhe was ready to start building lastsummer, Heftel decided to requireprospective buyers to sign a covenantlegally binding them to use fire-resis-tive building materials and followwildfire prevention practices modeledafter those in the Firewise program.When fully built, the development’snearly 100 homes will all be struc-turally fire-resistive and have adefensible zone around them.

It was a bold step, but, Heftel says,no one buying into the River BluffRanch development has refused to sign.

“We made it clear to everyone howimportant it is to use fire-resistivebuilding materials and to be commit-ted to fuels maintenance in anenvironment such as this,” Heftel says.

Firewise Communities/USA is aneducation program sponsored by theNational Wildland/Urban InterfaceFire Protection Program, a consortiummade up of the USDA Forest Service,the U.S. Department of Interior, theNational Association of State Foresters,the U.S. Fire Administration, andNFPA. The consortium’s covenants,which require fire-resistive buildingmaterials and defensible zones aroundproperties, are a new concept in thewildland/urban interface. However,community adoption of wildfire stan-dards such as NFPA 1144, Protection ofLife and Property from Wildfire, is becom-ing common in many areas, asresidents realize that the most effectiveway to avoid destruction from wild-fires is proper construction and fuelsmaintenance.

“This particular mountain has neverhad a serious wildfire, but the forest isvery vulnerable because unhealthygrowth has been allowed,” Heftel says.He says River Bluff Ranch is uphilland upwind from 1,000 acres (404hectares) of public land that hasn’tbeen maintained and is overloadedwith fuels.

Among the requirements of the

River Bluff Ranch covenants arepaved two-lane roads, secondary evac-uation roads, and a network of forestroads. Also required are undergroundutilities; a series of non-potable-waterstorage tanks with dry hydrants; fire-resistant roofing, double-panedwindows, deep side yard setbacks,defensible space, and vegetation main-tenance; and an on-site caretaker,equipment, and shop.

The covenants further require thatthe community’s homeowners’ associa-tion, when formed, enforce thecovenants, educate the residents, main-tain the roads and water storagefacilities, manage an ongoing foreststewardship program, and implement

the recommended Firewise Communi-ties budget—currently $2 per person—tobe used for future Firewise efforts.

“No one balked at committing to theFirewise covenants,” Heftel says. “Theyview it as physical protection for them-selves and their property, and anenhancement to the value of the house.”

It’s an attitude that Heftel views as aremarkable change.

“Only about five years ago, a simi-lar, upscale development wasconstructed several miles from herethat wouldn’t allow anything butwood-shake shingles for the roofing,”he says. “Shakes won’t come any-where near this development.”

Changing habits in MontanaWashington isn’t the only wildfire-prone state in which NFPA 1144 is

used to convince homeowners tochange their building material andconstruction habits. Frenchtown, Mon-tana, with a population of 1,700,adopted NFPA 1144 in 1998.

“One of the things I like about thecode is it’s a standard we can refer to,”says Frenchtown’s Fire Chief Scott Wal-dron. “Except for the cities, there’s nobuilding code in Montana, so NFPA1144 is a tool that we use with buildersand homeowners to change their habitsregarding the materials they use andthe need to cut back on fuels.”

NFPA 1144 provides those responsi-ble for fire protection, land-useplanning, property development, prop-erty maintenance, and others

responsible for, or interested in,improving fire and life safety in wildl-fire-prone areas with minimumrequirements for planning, construc-tion, maintenance, fire prevention, andmanagement.

Waldron, whose department covers150 square miles (388 square kilome-ters), says that, after adopting NFPA1144, the community applied for grantmoney to do risk assessments through-out the town.

“We mapped high-risk areas usingGPS (global positioning system) andtargeted them for mitigation work,”Waldron says. “Then we went to eachof the homeowners and explained therisks, both in fuels buildup and con-struction on the property that wasputting the structure at risk.”

He says the grants also helped to


REMOTE CONTROL

A family watches from their front yard as the Missionary Ridge wildfire rages out of control north of Durango,Colorado. Veteran Forest Service worker Terry Barton was charged with deliberately setting the wildfire south-west of Denver that destroyed at least 25 houses and forced 7,500 people from their homes.

NFPA 1144 PROVIDES THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR FIRE PROTEC-

TION, LAND-USE PLANNING, PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT,

PROPERTY MAINTENANCE, AND OTHERS RESPONSIBLE FOR, OR

INTERESTED IN, IMPROVING FIRE AND LIFE SAFETY IN WILD

FIRE-PRONE AREAS WITH MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS FOR PLAN-

NING, CONSTRUCTION, MAINTENANCE, FIRE PREVENTION, AND

MANAGEMENT.

began stressing the need to use build-ing materials that give structures achance to survive a wildfire.”

Scott says the use of fire-resistivematerials was a “touchy subject”because the fire department is in a dif-ferent business than builders.

“We’re trying to produce a productthat’s marketable and affordable, andyou have to be careful that you don’tprice yourself out of the market,” hesays. However, he acknowledges thatmany of the things the Firewise pro-

gram advocates are just common senseand don’t cost much.

“Something as simple as makingsure all soffits are fully enclosed (tokeep out fire brands) is easily done,”he notes. “We were able to get closerto a balance between the need to usefire-resistive materials and a desire ofhomeowners to build attractive, afford-able houses.”

Scott says he now regularly uses fire-retardant, Class A-rated shingles made ofasphalt or masonry on roofs, although hedoesn’t often use treated wood because itneeds periodic maintenance.

“Who’s going to make sure that thewood gets re-treated to keep it fire-retardant?” he asks.

Because the Arizona climate is sodry, Scott says the use of wood onexterior walls is uncommon.

“It dries out quickly, rots, and thenneeds to be replaced.”

Instead, he usually applies one coatof stucco with a one-hour fire rating toexterior walls.

Arizona’s climate also requires thathomes have excellent ventilation.

“You can’t eliminate ventilation in

houses because you’ll end up withmold and mildew and void the war-ranty on the new house,” Scott says.His solution was to use 1/8-inch meshto cover such openings as crawl spaceand attic accesses. It works.

“Flames in wildfires move so fastthat there’s not enough time for themto penetrate the much closer mesh,”Scott says.

“The mesh really works to keep outfire brands and sparks and still allowsthe house to be well-ventilated,” Willis

says. Because fire officials workedclosely with the building communityin developing a consensus approach tochoosing building materials, Scott sayshe’s become an enthusiastic supporterof the Firewise program.

“The whole process has been verypositive for our community,” he says.

Even before a building permit isissued, however, the fire departmentinspects the land and identifies thevegetation that must be removedbefore construction can begin.

“We go out and tell them what needsto be done, how far back they must cutback the trees and brush and otherfuels,” Willis says. “And we go back toinspect and make sure it gets done beforewe issue a building permit.”

Willis says that, over the past twoyears, Prescott City has received grantmoney from the federal government tohelp pay for a portion of the cost ofcrews to remove vegetation and createdefensible space on property occupiedby older homes.

“We’ve managed to treat more than1,000 properties in two years,” Willissays. “We’re making a pretty good dent.”

False sense of security“No place in the United States is com-pletely safe,” says the NFPA’s JamesSmalley, project manager for Firewise.“There are floods, hurricanes, bliz-zards, tornadoes, and wildfires. Everyspot in the United States has thepotential to be affected by a force ofnature, but wildfires don’t elicit thesame attitudes of self-preservation thatthose other forces do.”

Smalley, a nationally recognizedexpert on effective methods of mini-mizing the loss of life and damagecaused by wildfires, believes manyAmericans, especially those new to thewildland/urban interface, have a falsesense of security borne of their previ-ous life in an urban or suburbanenvironment.

“So much of our population haslived within 50 miles (80 kilometers)of a large or medium-sized city thatwe’ve become accustomed to expect-ing the local fire department to do itall,” Smalley says. “But it doesn’t hap-pen like that in areas near wildlands.”

Smalley says the issue is no longerhow to protect people and property.Effective methods have already beenidentified. The primary issue now iseducating people who live in the wild-land/urban interface about these rulesand procedures, and emphasizing howimportant it is that they be closely fol-lowed. In addition, Smalley says, itrequires a change in attitude amongthese residents of remote regions.

“When living in the urban, builtenvironment, people can get awaywith the attitude of ‘I’m not responsi-ble for my own protection.’ But in thewildland, you’re on your own,” hesays. “City dwellers are taking city-liv-ing concepts to places where theydon’t exist. We need to learn a lotmore about living in the natural envi-ronment.”

That’s why the Firewise programand NFPA 1144 are playing suchimportant roles in teaching peoplehow to pick the right location for ahouse in wildland, how to landscapeproperly, and how to use fire-resistivebuilding materials.


Cohen found out in Montana to seehow it applies to Florida,” Harrell says.

Over the last three years Florida,which adopted NFPA 299, Protection ofLife and Property from Wildfire, (NFPA1144’s former designation) as a refer-ence item in the state’s Fire PreventionCode, has assembled fire managementteams to help the state’s 15 fire dis-tricts reduce fuel loads, especiallythose near private property.

Harrell says that Florida has hadgreat success with Firewise workshops.

“We’ve had 20 one-day workshopssince August 2000, and we’ve had realgood attendance from builders anddevelopers who are beginning to buyinto the Firewise concepts.”

Builders in other states are showing aninterest, too. Among them is Leo Scott,who’s made a good living for 30 years asa building contractor in Prescott City, afast-growing community in the high desert

of central Arizona. Since 1970, PrescottCity’s population has almost tripled, from13,000 residents to nearly 36,000. In 2002,it grew at the rate of 3.3 percent annually,and federal census projections predict apopulation of 45,000 by 2014.

Prescott City is located in PrescottNational Forest 75 miles (121 kilometers)north of Phoenix, 90 miles (145 kilome-ters) south of Flagstaff, and about a mile(1.6 kilometer) above sea level. Itsrugged beauty and hundreds of squaremiles of forest land is a magnet for thou-sands of new residents every year, mostwith little or no experience living in thewildland/urban interface.

“Construction, especially new homeconstruction, is our biggest business,”Scott says. “And people who buy prop-erty with plans to build a house have acertain expectation that constructioncosts will remain affordable. That’swhy there was concern among

builders when workshops focused onbuilding materials.”

Those workshops were Firewiseworkshops, and concerned or not, thecommunity opted to pursue the pro-gram, with as many people as possibleinvolved in implementing Firewisetechniques. Prescott City’s been anactive Firewise community since 1990,and Scott and his fellow contractors,as well as newer and long-time resi-dents and fire officials from variousjurisdictions, participate in the effort tomaximize the city’s fire resistiveness.

Throughout the 1990s, says PrescottCity Fire Chief Darrell Willis, the Fire-wise Communities effort made slow,steady progress, but it was the CerroGrande fire near Los Alamos that gal-vanized the community.

“That wildfire really got people’sattention, and we got much more seri-ous about our Firewise program and


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DREMOTE CONTROL

Glendale firefighters wrap up hose lines after they ran out of water fighting a house fire Saugus, California.

THE RESEARCH ALSO SEEMS TO SUGGEST THAT CONTEMPO-

RARY METHODS OF FIGHTING WILDFIRES BY REDUCING THE

FUEL LOAD MAY NOT BE AS EFFECTIVE AS BELIEVED BECAUSE

THINNING FUELS ON PUBLIC LANDS DOES LITTLE TO REDUCE

THE IGNITABILITY OF A HOME ON PRIVATE LAND.


arizonashow lowby RICK COOK

EVACUATION LESSONS LEARNEDIN THE RODEO-CHEDESKI FIRE

When fire broke out on June 18, 2002, near the

Cibique rodeo grounds on the Fort Apache Indian Reserva-

tion in east central Arizona, no one knew what was coming,

but fire officials were afraid of what might happen.

“We had a couple of small fires prior to this that gave us

a heads-up and scared us to death,” says Ben Owens, chief

of the Show Low Fire District, about 20 miles (32 kilome-

ters) north and west of the fire’s point of origin. “The fire

behavior was so erratic and extreme. We felt we were

going to have an event this year, and unfortunately, we

were right.”

Four years of drought had left Arizona’s forests so dry

and fuel loads so heavy—up to 25 tons per acre (22. 7 met-

ric tons per 0.4 hectares)—that officials from the U.S.

Forest Service, state agencies, and local fire departments

and districts had worried about a monster fire for months.

They had reacted vigorously to threats all summer, trying

to keep the wild fires contained and hoping for the best. >>

inferno

them and things to do with their homeswhen they left.”

“In a community where you’ve got awildfire threat, the community is remiss ifit doesn’t have some kind of evacuationdrill at least once a year to let peopleknow what they need to take, what toleave, and what route to take,” says LarryHumphrey, incident commander for theNational Interagency Incident Manage-ment Team during the first days of thefire and, later, one of four incident com-manders. Humphrey, who normallyworks as a fuels specialist with theBureau of Land Management’s Safford,Arizona, office, suggests that the begin-ning of the fire season is a good time forsuch a drill.

Evacuation education isn’t easy in thekind of communities affected by theRodeo-Chedeski fire because of theirresort-like nature.

“Most of our residents are summerpeople,” says Scholl. On summer week-ends, most of Forest Lakes’ 900 houses

are likely to be occupied, but only about200 people live there year-round.

“You’re trying to get word to peoplewho don’t come to meetings and thingslike that,” Scholl says. The communitynewsletter ran an article about evacua-tions a couple of years before the fire,and Scholl says it would be a good ideato run such an article annually to getword out.

Show Low, with a larger populationand more year-round residents than For-est Lakes, was in a better position to getthe word out, and the Show Low FireDistrict pushed hard.

“We did mailers and had a constantinformation program on radio and televi-sion and with handouts,” says Owen.

The county’s emergency servicesdepartment provided the money for themailers. In addition, the fire district sentspeakers to homeowners’ organizationmeetings and to retirement communitiesto spread the word.

“It was just about a full-time job for a

few people,” says Owens. But, he adds, itpaid off.

“We’re confident that 99.9 percent ofthe community up here had an evacua-tion handout in their homes,” he says.

Communicating during a fireKeeping the public informed is even moreimportant once a fire breaks out. Oneway to do this is to use a series of alertlevels to warn residents how great thedanger has become. Humphrey says thatalert levels work well in moderation.

“I don’t think people can memorizemore than three alert levels,” he says.

Because no one was prepared for a firethat moved as quickly or got at big asRodeo-Chedeski, communicating withthe evacuees and the people in the threat-ened communities was a problem.

“There were never enough avenues toget information out,” says Jim Paxon, theinformation officer for Humphrey’s initialincident management team who becamethe “voice” of the fire to the media. “We


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SHOW LOW ARIZONA INFERNO

Aerial view of a burning wildfire near Heber, Arizona.

On June 18, however, their luck ranout. At the Cibique rodeo grounds, thedrought and fuel loads combined withhigh winds and terrain to produce some-thing that was simply unstoppable.

When the fire near the rodeo groundswas reported at 4:11 p.m., firefighterswere just wrapping up operations at asmaller forest fire nearby, and theyresponded aggressively to the new threat.An air tanker and a helicopter, bothalready in the air, were immediately dis-patched, along with an engine, anddropped the first load of water on the fireat 4:23 p.m. By that time, the “Rodeo”fire was already estimated at 15 acres (6hectares). By evening, it had grown tobetween 100 and 300 acres (40.5 to 121hectares). By 5 p.m. the next day, it hadburned more than 16,000 acres (6,475hectares)—and it was just getting started.

Two days later, on the morning of June20, a stranded motorist trying to flag downa news helicopter started a signal fire atChedeski, about 15 miles (24 kilometers)northwest of the Rodeo fire’s point of ori-gin. The helicopter pilot called in the firebefore the motorist even scrambled downthe slope where she had set the fire, andfirefighters responded promptly. Despitetheir efforts, the fire took off and jumpedthe ridge, covering 2,000 acres (809hectares) in a matter of hours.

On June 22, the Rodeo and Chedeskifires joined to become what would becomethe worst forest fire in recent Southwesthistory. Before it was contained on July 2,the Rodeo-Chedeski fire would burn468,000 acres (189,395 hectares) of brushand Ponderosa pine, destroy nearly 500structures, and force 32,000 people fromtheir homes in about a dozen communities.Some of them wouldn’t return home fornearly two weeks.

Summer and retirement homesThe area in which the Rodeo-Chedeskiburned is a study in wildland/urban inter-face. Most of Arizona is eithergovernment land, such as the Apache-Sit-graves National Forest; Indianreservations, such as the Fort Apachereservation; state land; or otherwiseunavailable for development. Private landin forested areas is eagerly sought for

summer and retirement homes, and thearea is full of small communities and sub-divisions. Much of the settlement isscattered, and the overall population den-sity is low, although many individualdevelopments are quite closely packed.

As much as they could, developers andhomeowners have preserved the treesthat, along with the cool temperatures,attract people to the area. Even themobile home parks preserve as manytrees as possible.

“We have people saying, ‘We boughtthe trees up here, and that’s why wemoved,’” says Owens.

That attitude may be natural for peo-ple who normally live in a desert citysuch as Phoenix, but it makes it difficultto reduce fire danger by effectively thin-ning the trees around homes.

The front of the Rodeo-Chedeski fireroughly followed state Route 260 as itswept through the wooded MogollonRim country from the subdivision of For-est Lakes on the western side of the fireto the town of Show Low on the east. Insome places, the fire was halted at orbefore the highway. In others, notablynear the communities of Heber andOvergaard in the east-central part of thearea, the fire jumped the highway andburned well north of the line. In general,the areas to the northeast and east weremost immediately threatened, while thedanger to communities such as ForestLakes on the western side of the firecame days later.

The timing helps explain the relativedestruction the fire caused. Heber, Over-gaard, and nearby communities werethreatened early, evacuated on June 20,and were relatively hard hit. Overgaardand the nearby community of Aripinelost 251 homes and 16 businesses. ForestLakes was also evacuated, but the firewas stopped short of the community,thanks in part to the extra time residentshad to prepare.

“If that fire had hit us like it did inHeber-Overgaard, where they had aday’s notice, well, they had no chance,”says Keith Scholl, chief administrator forthe Forest Lakes Fire District.

The fire was also a study in commu-nity evacuation in the face of a major

wildland fire, providing lessons that willaffect the way we deal with future fires.Some lessons, like the need for prepara-tion, are perhaps obvious. However,others, such as the problem of pets andlivestock left behind, are less so.

Perhaps the biggest lesson gleanedfrom the Rodeo-Chedeski evacuations, allthe participants agree, was the impor-tance of preparation at all levels. In awildland/urban interface fire involvingevacuations, that means preparing bothfirefighters and the public, and planningfor the event with the other agencies thatwill be involved.

It’s important for fire agencies to be hon-est with themselves about their capabilities.

“Something like this is a major self-assessment of who you are and what youcan and can’t do,” says Owens. “As a firedepartment, are you prepared for some-thing like this? Do you have themanpower, the training, and the certifica-tion in place to integrate with the ForestService systems? As a community, havewe been good stewards of the commu-nity?” Stewardship includes making surethat fire apparatus can get into subdivi-sions and to individual homes inthreatened areas, Owens says.

An evacuation is a coordinated effort,and fire departments aren’t usually thelead agencies in getting people out of anarea. During the Rodeo-Chedeski fire,that role fell to the local sheriff’s depart-ments, which decided when and howmuch territory to evacuate. That meantthat fire departments had to plan theevacuation with the sheriff’s departmentand other agencies.

The Show Low Fire District workedclosely with the local police, sheriff’sdepartment, and the state highway depart-ment to plan for a possible evacuation.Among other things, they conducted table-top exercises well before the fires brokeout to determine how a fire might developand how to conduct an evacuation.

The third major task was preparingthe public.

“Early last spring, we started preparingpeople that this event was inevitable,”says Owens. “We started early on evacua-tion education and how people should beprepared and what they should take with


“When you have to evacuate peoplefrom the same point twice, it really turnsugly,” Humphrey says.

One way to roughly measure the suc-cess of pre-evacuation education andplanning is to count the number of trafficaccidents during the evacuation. Even aminor accident can cause major problemson the two-lane roads that predominatein the fire area.

“We were pleased with the way theevacuation went,” Owens says. “Therewere no accidents, no injuries, and nobottlenecks. It went just like clockwork.”

CoordinationAny wildland/urban fire is an exercise incoordination, and this is doubly true ofevacuations. Although the fire teamadvised evacuating the communities, theactual decision as to what areas to evacu-ate and when were left to the sheriff andthe other local law enforcement officials,whose decisions didn’t always coincidewith the recommendations.

“For the Pinetop-Lakeside area, theincident management team recommendedevacuating Show Low but not Pinetop orLakeside,” says Humphrey. “The sheriff’soffice decided to evacuate all three com-munities.” The sheriff was concernedabout looting, access control, and otherissues not directly related to the fire. Thedifference, Humphrey says, was that “wewere looking at it from a fire manage-ment standpoint, and the sheriff waslooking at it from a people standpoint.”

“That’s where you need to have a gooddiscussion with the people responsible forthe evacuation,” Humphrey says. “You’vegot to let them know what the problemsand dangers are, and they have to make adecision on who is to be evacuated.”

The key to a successful relationship isto acknowledge each other’s expertiseand respect one another’s concerns,Humphrey says.

Another problems was people whorefused to evacuate.

“Everyone remembers Harry Trumanand Spirit Lake at Mount St. Helens,”says Paxon, referring to the man whorefused to evacuate before the volcanoerupted and died in the blast. “We hadsome evacuees who refused to leave. I

understand their concern, but we’re goingto be going to memorial services if peoplecontinue to do that and get caught,”

“If we have another evacuation thissummer, I’m going to be curious as tohow many people won’t leave,” Eppssays. “That will compound our problemand make things critical for us.”

The other problem with people whodon’t leave is that they put firefighters’lives at risk if they become trapped.

“We’re going to put firefighters at riskbecause they’ll try to rescue those people,even if the command says no,” Paxonsays. “That is just plaguing me.

“Do we just say to these people ‘Okay,you’ve made a personal decision and werespect that, but we’re not going to go inand get you [if the fire endangers you]?’ Idon’t think we’ve crossed that thresholdwhere we won’t go in and get someone,”he says.

This problem is likely to be worse inthe next big Arizona fire because a num-ber of people from the community ofClay Springs who defied evacuationorders and stayed behind to save theirhouses have become something of heroesin news stories. That, together with theloss of houses in the Rodeo-Chedeskifire, is likely to encourage others to staybehind the next time.

Further complicating the issue is thefact that Arizona law doesn’t allow peopleto be ordered to leave their homes. Ifsomeone insists on staying, there’s noth-ing the fire teams can do about it. Itmight be possible to change the law toforce people to obey an evacuation order,but observers familiar with the Arizonalegislature are skeptical that it wouldmake such a law. What’s more, such alaw would be very difficult to enforce inforested terrain spiderwebbed with dirtroads and few natural choke points.

Paxon said the fire teams and otherofficials are still working out what to dowhen people refuse to evacuate.

Pets and livestockNot all lessons are as obvious as prepara-tion. Take the pets and livestock leftbehind, for instance.

“In a lot of community evacuationplanning, [animals] are quite often over-

looked by the sheriff’s office and others,”Humphrey says. “They’ve got places forpeople to go, but they don’t think aboutthe horses, cows, and cats and dogs. Ithink we had more problems with peopletrying to get back through the roadblockbecause their cat was locked in the houseor their rabbits were out of water,”Humphrey says. “It got to be pretty time-consuming, escorting people back in.”

Volunteers who went in to feed andwater animals and rescue pets helped, hesays. In addition, animal shelters as faraway as Phoenix cooperated in housingpets separated from their owners.

One of the most remarkable thingsabout the Rodeo-Chedeski fire was thatno one was killed or seriously injured, inspite of the fire’s size and intensity.

“National Incident Management Teamshave lots of experience and make safetyfirst and foremost in their minds,”Humphrey says. There are 17 NationalInteragency Incident Management Teamsacross the nation, generally consisting of35 members from fire and emergencymanagement agencies. These teams usu-ally manage large and complex wildlandfires, floods, earthquakes, and other nat-ural disasters.

Although some communities, such asthose around Overgaard-Aripine, werehard hit, many others were saved. Daysof intense effort halted the fire within aquarter of a mile (0.4 kilometers) of ShowLow, for example. Likewise, the commu-nities of McNary, Hon Dah, Lakeside,Forest Lakes, and Heber remainedundamaged.

Communities from Forest Lakes toShow Low are now working on theirevacuation plans and educating resi-dents about evacuation, but this isn’t acase of locking the barn door after thehorse is gone.

“We could be right back in the samebusiness next year,” Humphrey says. “Wehave a lot of drought-stressed and bug-killed trees out there waiting for anignition event. We could be in the sameor worse situation next year.”

RICK COOK is a freelance writer living in Phoenix,Arizona. He started covering fires and fire issuesas a newspaper reporter and editor in the 1960s.


SHOW LOW ARIZONA INFERNO

used law enforcement officers, and weused Navajo County’s 911 rollover dialsystem. We had door-to-door contact,and we used community television, butthat was still one of the real problems.”

The rollover system calls a list of num-bers in succession and delivers a recordedmessage. Unfortunately, the telephonesystem proved completely inadequate,particularly since less than half the evac-uees stayed in the evacuation centers.There were only two information linesthe public could call to get information,and they were jammed.

“Navajo County is working on itsphone system and using grant money toenhance its 911 call out system,” Paxonsays. “They’re consulting Ruidoso andLos Alamos (sites of recent major wild-land/urban interface fires) to see whattechnology they’re using.”

In fact, one of the most importantlessons of the Rodeo-Chedeski fire wasthat it’s worth making a great effort tofind out where evacuees are going andhow to reach them after they leave.

“I don’t think we did enough there,”Paxon said.

The Web can be important in gettinginformation to evacuees, Paxon says,pointing out that the fire district forPinedale had a very good Web site,which became an important resource.However, the Web requires a differentapproach, one that Paxon says fire orga-nizations are still learning how to use.

“We’re used to the information organi-zation pushing information out,” he said.“Now with Web sites, people can pull itin. That’s something we’re going to haveto get better at. We’re just learning howto use hot links and other ways to use thetechnology.”

For Mel Epps, chief of the Heber-Overgaard Fire District, communicatingwith the public was such a problem thathe isn’t going to leave it to outside agen-cies in the future.

“Our biggest lesson was that we leftthe public information job to someoneelse, and it seems they dropped the balland that created a lot of havoc,” Eppssays. “The people handling the informa-tion didn’t do a good job. The evacueeswere not kept abreast of what was going

on. There were many false reports, thingslike the fire had gone right through thecenter of town, the fire station was gone.The news companies were putting stufflike that on the 6 p.m. news.”

Because the firefighters from theHeber-Overgaard area were so busyfighting the fire, they didn’t realize thatfalse reports were getting out.

“We should have known better thanthat,” Epps said. “I was the public infor-mation officer for the city of Mesa,Arizona, for a year and a half, and Ishould have realized what was going on.”

Epps believes that the media shouldhave been allowed into the area earlier.

“I think we need to conduct them inourselves, and [in the future] we’ll takeresponsibility for doing that,” he says.

Because the communities were so hardhit, people from the Heber-Overgaardarea were desperate for information.After the fire had passed through thecommunities, but before evacuees wereallowed back in, Epps says the people atthe evacuation centers were “like a bunchof children, they were so eager to findout what was happening.”

Because the towns don’t have localtelevision stations, the Heber-OvergaardFire District is trying to work with localham operators to put a radio in the firestation that firefighters can use in theevent of another evacuation. The fire dis-trict plans to issue reports hourly to theevacuation centers.

Trigger pointsAnother important tool in managing evac-uations is trigger points. A trigger point isa clearly defined location or landmark withwhich residents are familiar and againstwhich they can measure a fire’s progress.Using a landmark as a trigger point helpseveryone gauge when an evacuation willbe ordered and allows the public to moni-tor the need to evacuate.

Part of setting a good trigger point istechnical. It is the job of the fire behavioranalysts and the meteorologist to estab-lish the fire’s probable behavior, includingthe speed at which it is likely to move.

“We told the community up front wewere setting trigger points, and as the fireapproached these trigger points, we kept

them informed,” says Owens. “We keptthem aware of what was happening withthe fire so it wasn’t a surprise.”

However, Humphrey says triggerpoints shouldn’t be set in stone. Chang-ing conditions may require changingtrigger points.

Humphrey recalls working the Moosefire in Glacier National Park in Montanain 2001, where the trigger point was setat a creek. If the fire jumped the creek,the people in the fire’s path would beevacuated. However, the fire stopped onthe far edge of the creek and stayed therefor several days. Eventually, the triggerpoint was moved from the creek to aridge, but Humphrey says it should havebeen moved sooner.

“We kept people in a state of suspense solong the edge wore off,” Humphrey says.

Humphrey also stresses that evacuationsshould be done early, but not too early. Ifan evacuation is ordered too soon, takingpeople out of their houses for several daysbefore the fire arrives, pressure to get backinto areas that haven’t yet been hit willbuild, he says. If people are allowed backin and the fire picks up, they may have tobe evacuated again.


LESSONS LEARNED

• Hold drills and exercises.

• Provide the community with information on evacuation.

• Warn the community as early as possible.

• Don’t establish more than threestages of alert.

• Set and publicize trigger points,and revise them if necessary.

• Don’t evacuate too early.

• Coordinate with other agenciesand respect each other’s expertise.

• Plan for pets and livestock.

FWC-404-03-RP © 2003, NFPA Journal®. All rights reserved.

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nfpa - National Interagency Fire Center nfpa journal march/april 2003 building a home in a remote region with spectacular mountain